


Tales of Deva Victrix: Walsh

by Nekoian



Series: Tales of Deva Victrix [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-09-01 08:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16761388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekoian/pseuds/Nekoian
Summary: Being an orphan means your surname is Walsh in Deva. In this tale, we take a look back at the lives of some minor characters starting with a certain criminal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlighten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/gifts).



> A gift to Moonlighten that is partly for Christmas but also for the 1 Mill celebration. Hope it's ok my friend <3

Niall is wakened at six by sheer habit to the sound of the screeching river birds and the distant voices that drift up to the orphanage from the various boats that float along the river. The weather has gotten colder these past few days, a sudden snap of winter reminding the unusually warm autumn about the time of year. 

He sits up and rubs his eyes, there’s a thick caking of grit all along each one that flakes away, taking one dark eyelash with it. He’s stretched and began to clamber down the thin ladder from his bunk when the first sounds of life start keening their way through the building. Babies and toddlers wail for their breakfast, the hushed voices of other children in their rooms as they stamp their feet and pull on their clothing. 

Niall doesn’t share his room, the last three occupants moved on two older than he left together a week ago while the other had died of a sudden flush of the lung and the numerous awful infections that followed it. Niall had gotten sick himself, made worse by the worry of it, but has since mended. There are other reasons a Walsh might leave the isolated world of small bedrooms, chores, and bi-weekly lessons besides turning seventeen and death. Adoption is the rarer one, reserved for the very young. Couples who cannot have their own prefer to raise a child from a baby. It creates the illusion of real parenthood –Madam Walsher’s words, not his.- Niall had been taken in a few times when he was younger but returned almost as quickly when he's not quite lived up to expectations. Now he’s ten and far, far too old for any of that, he’s no longer small and cute enough. His limbs have already begun to stretch out, making his journeys down the bunk ladder more clumsy each morning.

The second and far more common is some unmarried business owner or another who’s getting on in years and needs a cheap alternative to actual workers will take on an older child as an apprentice. The business in question is rarely a good one. Lars had been apprenticed out as a Tanner and had abandoned his ‘fathers’ business entirely the second he was old enough. Lars said being a Tanner had been the worst experience of his life. He’d never elaborated on why, exactly, that might be but he had developed a rotten meat smell and many, many bruises and cuts. 

Madam Walsher said he was just a lazy boy who would amount to nothing like every other unwanted wretch under her care –her words again, not Niall’s, Lars at least was always very intelligent and canny, he did trick other people into scrubbing the floors for him, afterall.- She doesn’t think much of anybody as far as Niall can tell. She forgets his name sometimes. 

Niall pulls on his clothing after a quick scrub from the jug of water atop the chest of drawers and shivers out a long yawn as he stuffs his feet into his shoes. This morning he has to go pick up some crates of groceries then help prepare dinner for tonight. He’ll also have to prepare some quills for tomorrow’s lessons. He’s teaching himself to read and write on top of the basic lessons he attends. He’s been told reading and writing is a waste for a Walsh, but a person who can read and write has more options. Niall thinks he’d like to be a clerk some day. 

He cracks each finger then combs his hair the best he can. Most of it got cut off to help curb the lice outbreak but his dark curls are already making a comeback, in inconsistent patches. 

He hears Madam Welsher’s heavy heels and quickly throws on his waistcoat and ties his shoes before she throws the door open, she frowns at him in that judgemental way she always does before turning her attention towards his room, which is never tidy enough for her liking even if he has no real belongings to scatter around the place. The joys of living as a Walsh from the time you’re a baby. 

“You’re up,” her usual greeting, “you’re to meet your new master today.”

“Master?”

“Old Wallis needs a young set of hands at his mill. You’re old enough now to start work.” She dusts down her apron, it’s stained and crooked, “make a good impression and you’ll be in an apprenticeship. Wallis will box your ears if you make a bad one.” She fusses with his clothing, frowning at the way his arms have gotten too long for his blouse, “when I was a lass I worked at the mills from when I was no age. They don’t make children work the way they used to.” 

Niall can’t decide if she’s happy or sad about that, but decides he doesn’t much care. 

“He’s picking you up in an hour so hurry and get something to eat,” she nudges him out the door, “he’s paid good money so you had better work hard.” 

He dashes down into the main hall, where various other children have already started breakfast, watery oats and chalky bread topped with overly salted butter. Some will be staying around the orphanage to do their assigned chores while many others will leave for the day to locate whatever they can get. 

Niall steals the bread off one of his little sisters and slinks his way into the kitchen to find some watery tea and stay clear of the older occupants who will shake you down for anything they can get off you. Most of them avoid the kitchen, it’s a smelly and noisy place where a number of women hold babies to their breast or diligently clean up vomit and other bodily fluids from walls and floor. 

One of the younger ladies cuffs his ear for getting in the way of the stove and another hands him a screaming toddler who wriggles and fusses in his grasp while she hunts out a glass bottle of medicine. 

Niall adjusts and fidgets the best he can to keep a hold, but very small children are a bit like some horrid liquid that drips through your fingers while staining your skin and clothing. He glares at the toddler and is tempted to set it down and leave but is thankfully relieved of his burden just as the temptation overwhelms him. Various preachers from the temple have told him children are the golden rays of light from the Gods themselves, here by their glory but there’s clearly a mistranslation somewhere. He watches as a little girl smears her own crap across the wall and a small baby wails so hard that there’s an aura of pure migraines spreading through the whole building. One of the children his own age kicks Niall in the shin as he passes by for no reason. 

Niall draws back his fist and hits the little bitch so hard that one of her front teeth pop out and she runs crying for Madam Walsher who will either care enough to hit him or will hit her for her efforts. Either way, somebody is going to bruise and Niall can only hope it isn’t him, because it’s every one for themselves in here and there’s very little room for compassion with so much competition. 

He crawls onto the recessed window and huddles there with his bread and tea as he watches the boats. Word is they carry cargo from Hibernia –Niall recently learned what a Hibernia is- and from other areas of Britannia along the coast. You can supposedly tell which is which from the coloured fabric they sometimes fly but that’s of no interest to him. The boats make berth at the docks before heading along the rivers or back out to sea. He knows this is called ‘export’ and that you can sometimes weasel a few coins from the sailors if you spin a sad story or do a few small games with cards or cups. 

Niall is interrupted from his recollection of learned knowledge by the sound of Madam Walsher’s heels marching in his direction. His body prepares for the strike she deals him long before his mind even realises she’s there and she hits him again for good measure while the same exhausted tirade spews from her mouth. 

There’s a pain in his hand where it snagged the broken latch of the window and a bruise will bloom like a flower on his shoulder, he’ll feel it tomorrow. When the Madam storms away, a sea of parting children in her midst –one poor soul getting roughly dragged by the arm into the kitchen- the girl who’d hit him sticks her tongue out at him. He returns it and feels a sort of satisfaction that eventually everyone will get a clobbering, including her snotty little face. 

\--

Old Wallis is a very weathered man, with bowed legs and a face that’s perpetually reddened and cratered, he looks like a judgemental beet that’s been sat outside a bit too long. He seems nice enough at a glance, even if he does study Niall the same way nobles do with the horses they rent from a stable, even his lips get pushed back so his teeth can be tutted over. 

“Still got some baby teeth.” Is old Morris’ observation and like many things adults say Niall cannot work out if that’s good or bad. 

“You work at a mill?” Niall asks to avoid the long silence that has lingered too long while his limbs get a good poking and prodding by bony old fingers. 

“Aye.” Old Morris grunts and farts, “I grind flour.” 

It’s a relief, Niall thinks, that he’s not being sent into the large fabric mill. Anyone who goes there complains of poor treatment, long hours and painful lacerations from the equipment. One girl got her hair tangled in the machines and lost all her fingers in her struggle to free herself. Niall flexes his fingers in memoriam; he’d much sooner keep his. 

“He’s a scrawny one.” Old Morris tells Madam Walsher, “barely any muscle on him.” 

“He’ll grow,” she rests a hand on his shoulder, it resembles affection even if it doesn’t feel like it, “smart little sod too, works fast and halfway lettered.” 

The old man lets out a cynical sounding gurgle and paws at the puff of white hair that remains stubbornly on his head, “how’s a Walsh know anything about letters?” 

“I studied the prayer cards at the temple, we go there once a month,” Niall likes going to temple, sitting in the pew to listen to stories and give thanks for all his blessings and a chance to admit all his wrongdoings. He talked once to a clerk who had sat at a desk with a big book and a quill and felt a flush at the way the man smiled at him and allowed him to look at one of the many books of the Gods. 

Niall feels an instant pang of guilt. He’d pocketed the book without knowing why and still has it tucked away in his room. He’s promised many times to return it, but always makes excuses not to, instead he reads the commandments and says the prayers and copies segments down when he’s practising his writing. The Gods words say to ‘do’th to thine neighbour as thy neighbour do’th to thee’, but Niall’s brothers and sisters steal from him all the time, and stealing is often the only way to get anything. So why does he feel so bad about feeling so good about the act of stealing things? 

Either way he’d made sure to hide the book in the small bag he’s got at his side, with a few stolen coins and some dry bread to sneak as they walk to the mill. The only spare clothes he has is a pair of socks and a scarf with a large hole in it so those are crammed in as well. 

“You know anything about working a mill?” Old Morris asks, leaning so close that Niall can see the veins in his yellowed eyed and the grey hairs sprouting from his lumpy chin. 

Niall shakes his head, “I like to learn though, I learn good.” 

Old Morris scratches his neck and muses for a moment, the madam's office has a muted sound of chaos from somewhere own the hall. 

“I’ll take him,” the old man declares, “I’ll sign his papers if he can pull his weight.” 

“Of course. No point rushing into it.” She accepts a small bag of coins and the adults shake hands, then Old Morris stands and motions for Niall to follow. 

“Better get along. Time is money.” 

\--

The cold weather has lost its bite by the time they reach the town gate, it’s the first time Niall has gone through them, he’s snuck outside into the wide world a few times, it’s a liberating feeling. The two of them walk in silence, Old Morris huffing at his long clay pipe and muttering a song under his breath, Niall chewing on his bread and admiring the darkening grass and falling orange leaves as he walks along the cobbled road. Once or twice he’ll slip or have to dash aside to let a cart go past. 

Old Morris and one of the driver's pause to talk, the kind of talk grown-ups indulge in, business and other boring subjects. Niall takes the chance to get a good look at the big black horse that’s pulling the cart along. Its mane and tail are cropped short and the poor thing is missing most of one ear but it peers down at him with big dark eyes and long lashes and lowers it’s head when he greets it. It’s pink and white nose snort at him when he works up the courage to touch it. The animals steaming breath warms Niall’s chilled fingers and the hairy snout nudges his hand, snuffing his open palm and snarfing up the last crumb of bread, which it munches down with a few lazy chews. 

He touches the worn leathers around the horse's neck and muzzle, pets a shoulder and admires the huge hairy feet, which make a clop with each footfall on the hard stones underneath. 

“Get away, Walsh.” Old Morris chides with a wave of his pipe, “you’ll spook the beast.” 

“Ah now, Henry’d never spook. Child’n always runnin unner his feet and like.” The driver winks in Niall’s direction; he’s wearing a straw hat and muddy overalls that make him seem far drearier than his thin smile can make up for. “T’any rate I best be getting along. I’ll drop your stock on morrow and drag it t’town. Be seeing you.” 

The man gives his reins a soft snap and the cart rattles away, various large bags and boxes are piled onto the back, a trader most likely, “most traders come by boat into the docks, don’t they?” 

“Hmm?” 

“That man’s a trader, so he should come by boat. Right?” 

“Fergus works for a farmer up north. A villein. I get a supply of grain from there. He delivers it and takes things to market.”

“According to the laws of the Gods," he chews his lip as he tries to recall the verses, "a villein can’t leave his village unless he’s delivering a message or going to battle or with his master. How come he’s by himself?”

Old Morris pauses and paps at his pipe, old bleary eyes narrowing slightly as the cold breeze snags and tugs at the wisps of his white hair, “you ask a lot of questions,” Old Morris pushes Niall forward along the road with one bony old hand, the ends of his fingers sting Niall’s shoulder, “any rate that crap they’ve taught you is old fashioned. Stop dawdling.”


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy.

A strong current stirs the water, cracking the reflection of Niall's body like shards of molten glass. It’s a stirring of grey and green as the river twists into small streams or breaks the shore, exposing the mud and pebbles amidst fields of long, fat headed grasses and trees with their weeping sunken branches that dip into the water like so many longing fingers. Niall has seen uncurling ferns before, poking from damp patches of cobble or clinging to a wall like a green spider; but here at the waterside they’ve grown massive, the leaves feel waxy when he dares to run his finger along with them. A bird bobs in the water, watching him suspiciously as he pauses.  
  
Old Morris’ voice urges Niall into rushing off and the bird takes to the air in a panic. Her brown wings sending up a spray of water as she vanishes into the metal grey sky.  
  
The cobbles have turned rough now, made into small canyons by too many cartwheels and too little mending. Old Morris looks at Niall like he might strike him or cuff his ear. His hand raises as though to do so and Niall makes his body taut in order to bear the brunt of it.  
  
Those old hands merely fidget at the pipe clamped in the man's mouth, “Y’ever been outside, boy?” Old Morris grins, not needing or wanting the answer, “aye, this river is a pretty thing. Wild too. Like a woman.”  
  
“A woman?”  
  
Old Morris chews his pipe, exhales a trail of smoke and nods, his eyes lost in the waves, “women are stupid things, but beautiful and dangerous. Like, your Madam Walsh. A real ball breaker she looks like.”  
  
Niall casts a critical eye over the water, through the grass and birds and into the sparse trees and fields at the far edge, “I don’t see any women.”  
  
“You will, then that’ll be all you think about.” He ruffles Niall's hair; his hands leave a smoky old smell that drifts as it pleases into Niall's nose. It smells like the back of the orphanage, but without the rotten wet stink of the ash bucket. Niall thinks he might love this cleaner version of it.  
  
“Mills just over this next bend, you can see the smoke.”  
  
Niall can’t see the smoke but takes Old Morris’ word for it as they begin to walk. He wants to ask so many questions about the trees, plants, animals and people they pass, what the crooked wooden signs say when the cobbled path splits and meanders away from them and heads to some distant crop of small white buildings, little red rooftops demanding everyone’s attention. Above them, a bird cries out and vanishes.  
  
Niall pauses to stare at a strange woollen beast in a field that looks back at him with soft sad eyes. They part ways amicably.  
  
The mill seems to emerge from the ground and spread out into the water amidst a thick coat of green leaves and shadows, it’s wheel raking into water like it desperately wants to swim away but is being held back, shackled there against it’s will as the building seems to jut into the river and take control of it even as it’s wooden walls lose their purchase and the bridge that leads them to the door bloats as it makes it’s way to the opposite bank, where it bows to a long wall, made of stones so tightly and neatly stacked together that they seem to fuse into one and make a daring escape to some far off place over a hill where more of those woollen creatures stand like little clouds that crop at the grass or stare into nothing.  
  
Everything seems to groan and whine in distress to the trees and distant hills, like a lost babe mewling and naked amidst the feet of the blind, deaf adults who care little and do less.  
  
Old Morris saunters up to the steps towards the building, pausing to glance at the wheel and frown over some fault before ordering Niall to get his arse in gear and stop gawking.  
  
As he climbs up after Old Morris a second man; young and broad of shoulder, lurches out the main door with a massive cloth sack thicker than Niall's ribcage –at the least- casually strewn over his shoulder.  
  
“There you are Alastair, just got you a new pup to help with the work.”  
  
Alastair removes his cloth cap and gives it a shake; it sprays a dusting of coarse flour outwards as he shoves it back over his thin flaxen hair, “we don’t need some useless whelp to get in the way.” Niall hears him mutter quietly in the old man's ear, “they’re expensive to feed and they’re always crying.”  
  
“He's a tough lad,” Old Morris says then pushes past the younger, “and if he’s _not_ worth his salt we return him.”  
  
Niall watches the old man (who he had almost tricked himself into loving) stride through the door without a glance in his direction. The looming threat of failure scatters seeds afresh in his heart and he fears the day when they’ll bloom into hideous vines to begin their task of crushing everything inside his guts.  
  
Heavy feet march at him, making him stare upwards into Alastair’s face, his skin is brown from the sun and bears a discoloured patch of ugly pink skin under each nostril and the edges of his eyes, he’d be a handsome sort of man if not for those, the skin looks like a series of rashing blisters, one of them weeps and leaves a sticky yellow trail half dried.  
  
“Suppose you’ll be needing a place to sleep, Da and I sleep in the cottage but you’ll have to make do in the stable loft. T’wife makes dinner for eight so we work until then.” Alastair adjusts the flour bag he’s holding as he starts to walk, “c’mon then, best get you settled. You can help me with the lifting.”  
  
Niall hesitates, but Alastair seems content to continue walking, regardless of whether Niall follows or not; Niall follows for fear of being left behind, watching the massive back, draped in dirty cloth with more patches than the original fabric.  
  
Alastair could snap him in half without a second thought.  
  
Niall shudders.  


* * *

  
The work has been difficult.He drags large sacks of coarse flour down the wooden stairs of the mill, a constant creaking and grinding from the millstone making his head buzz with what he thinks might be a permanent vibrating hum. Each sack is hoisted into the barn, where he’d placed his belongings earlier, hidden in a corner of the loft.  
  
A few men and women with horses and carts have stopped by and he’ll drag their goods over or lift what they've brought. His limbs are soon aching and his clothing powdered white from small tears in the bags of fabric.   
  
By the time he’s charged with dragging bags of grain from cart to barn to grindstone, his hands have started to blister and ache and he has numerous splinters in his fingers; skinned his knees and elbows from falling over his own legs.  
  
As soon as he thinks he can stand no more Alastair sits him down on the damp grass, offering him a half an apple and some bread still warm from the oven. He eats it greedily and bites his own tongue in his rush to cram as much in as he can. Alastair watches him with a placid disinterest if he’s not frowning back towards his family cottage or at the mill.  
  
“How does the mill work?” Niall asks when his food is in his stomach, safe from being stolen, “The big stone seems to move by...well...something evil.”  
  
Alastair offers a half smile and lifts a stick, he begins to scratch shapes in the dirt, “the stone is connected to that big wheel in the water by a bunch of cogs” Alastair explains, he’s grinning, “when the rivers current flows the whole thing turns.”  
  
Niall stares at the various shapes in the dirt, roughly drawn circles and long wobbly lines that he feels he’s halfway to understanding; irritated that he’s clearly missing something important.  
  
“Never mind it, lad, not our place to understand nought.” Alastair nudges his head towards the bubbling sound of the river, “go and get a drink of water, it’s clean enough.”  
  
Niall does so, leaving Alastair with a bottle of watery ale and his pensive expression. Niall pushes aside a stringy looking plant and wades into the shallows, he can feel smooth stones beneath his feet and see tiny fish darting this way and that, they evade his attempts to catch them and he decides having a drink and easing his sore limbs is a better use of his time. With his body soon damp and free of sweat and flour he turns his attention to attacking a splinter with his teeth, feeling it slide away with a stinging relief.  
  
He takes a step forward but quickly realises that the water is running too fast and deep. Returns himself to dry land, immediately getting a scolding for soaking himself.  


* * *

  
  
The day moves by quickly, despite the many aches and injuries he’s endured. When day begins to give way to the night and with no more work to be done Niall is led toward the cottage with its small white walls and thatched roof. He pauses at the door, its warm cosy atmosphere is as imposing as it is tempting. There’s a hearty food smell in the air that makes his mouth water, and a warmth that spills a welcoming orange light over stone and metal, twinkling from pots and pans and the mugs set on the table.  
  
A young woman in a bonnet scampers back and forth, she fusses over some plates or shoos a persistent cat off the table before hurriedly rushing to kiss Alastair’s cheek. She sees Niall hovering at the doorway, frowns and waits for an explanation.  
  
“It was Da’s idea.” Alastair says, his voice is thick with an apology, “ _I_ didn’t want him, Martha.”  
  
Niall takes a step backwards, feeling that familiar punch to the gut he’s gotten so often from his elders.  
  
“Where did your Da find him.”  
  
“Orphanage in Deva I reckon.” He pronounces the word Deva as though his mouth is full of small stones, _Du-vuuh_.  
  
Martha screws her apron up in her hands and swallows hard on something she wasn’t chewing, “well, suppose we better feed him then. You’ve worked him half to death, poor mite.”  
  
“He’s fine.” Alastair finally peers in Niall’s direction, “get in and close the door.”  
  
Martha leans down and touches the tip of his chin with her soft fat fingers. She’s got the same red welts under her nose and watering eyes. She blinks and the tears fade, “What’s your name, little mite?”  
  
“Niall.” He tells her, “with two L’s.”  
  
“I hope you like lamb. It’s all we’ve got.” She stands, adjusts her hair then frowns at both of them, “well, sit down at the table, I need to fetch your Da. He’s been staring into the fire for hours.”  
  
Niall sits at the table, accepting the playful way Alastair rumples his hair and tells him how untidy he looks.  
  
Martha returns, Old Morris trudging along behind her, he grins as he sits down, “have a good days work?”  
  
They nod as Martha sets down a plate of bread, a dish of butter and pours milk into their glasses. While their heads are bowed in prayer Niall’s fingers burn, compelling him to slide a few slices of the loaf into his pocket, apologising to the Gods for doing so.  
  
The food is good though he eats it without tasting. This amuses Martha and makes Old Morris chortle but Alastair frowns and says nothing.  
  
When they’re done and Niall has helped to clean the dishes and made friends with the cat –he finds out her name is Muddy- it’s time to sit by the fire. Martha’s needles click as she knits, Alastair counts some coin by a little lamp perched on a rickety table and Old Morris warms his feet by the fire and urges Niall to sit by him, he does.  
  
“Do they tell you stories, that old ball breaker and her lot at the Orphanage?”  
  
Niall shakes his head, he feels weary and heavy and his limbs burn in the afterglow of pain. Niall is urged to rest his head against the old man's knee, and he feels bony fingers gently pat his hair. “I was in the guards once, a long time ago.” He begins , then Niall stops listening as Muddy crawls onto his lap. Old Morris continues to talk, his thick aged voice makes Niall sleepy.   
  
This must be what a family feels like. He likes it.


End file.
